Read Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway for Free Online Page A

into the bathroom. There, she took a look at my head, deciding on the best plan of attack. She separated a small portion of my hair and started braiding. “If we do it in sections, at least it might look half decent . . .” She sighed. I had to admire Marie. It had to be hard on her to see the changes I was going through. Once the braids were in place, she took one last look at me to gauge whether I was kidding. She could see in my eyes that I was not. She shook her head.
     
    “Mom is gonna KILL you, Cherie. She’ll freak.”
     
    “She’s so busy with Wolfgang she probably won’t even notice . . .”
     
    “Yeah, right! She’ll notice THIS!”
     
    “Come ON, Marie. Help me out! You know I’m going to do it anyway . . .”
     
    Equipped with red and blue food coloring, she squirted the runny ooze into the sections that she had skillfully braided through my long blond hair. Marie started rubbing this slimy, red gunk into one third of my hair, wearing a pair of Mom’s rubber gloves. Of course, my sister didn’t want to mess up her perfect nails. Sometimes I couldn’t believe that we were twins.
     
    When she started rubbing the blue dye into the next section, Marie said, “I don’t know if this stuff will ever come out, Cherie.” She was looking at my multicolored hair, frowning with concern.
     
    “So what?” I smiled. “It’s only food coloring. If it doesn’t come out, I’ll bleach it out.”
     
    That silenced her for a few moments. She carried on, shaking her head at me.
     
    “Is this all about those jerks in school yesterday?” Marie said to me, her voice softening. She still seemed to think that she could talk me out of going to school with multicolored hair. “I think you’re overreacting to this whole thing, Cherie.”
     
    I stared at her for a moment. “For your information, I am NOT overreacting. I’m REACTING. That’s different. It’s important to react when you’re pissed off.”
     
    The incident happened the day before. I was watching these creeps harassing this seventh grader for stepping on the ninth-grade lawn. Those ninth-grade punks would pounce if you were caught cutting a corner of their precious lawn. The poor kid looked about ready to pee in his pants. They were shoving him around and laughing at him. “Hey, freak!” one of them yelled. “Nice glasses! You steal ’em off of Mr. Magoo?”
     
    The kid just took it. He was scared stiff. Then the ringleader grabbed the glasses right off of his face, and threw them on the ground. He got right up in this kid’s face and yelled. “YOU’RE A FREAK!” he taunted. “A FOUR-EYED FUCKING FREAK!” He gave him one last shove before upending him into a garbage can. He and the others stood around laughing like a pack of jackals. I went to help the poor kid out of the trash, dusting him off a little. He was crying. “Come on,” I said softly. “Lemme help you get your glasses . . .”
     
    Suddenly I was shoved from behind. The ringleader was bearing down on me already. “Whatcha helping this FREAK for? Huh?” Then he turned to the rest of his cronies and said, “I guess she must be a freak-lover BITCH!”
     
    As soon as he shoved me, I felt the anger rising in my chest. That feeling, like a red cloud was descending over my eyes as the rage began to pump through my veins, setting my heart off on a skittering, pounding rhythm. I clenched my fists till my hands shook.
     
    “You’re calling this kid a freak?” I screamed. “I’ll show you a REAL freak!”
     
    The kid started backing off, startled by my outburst, and the smile slid from his face. Thankful that the attention was off him for the moment, the kid I’d helped out of the garbage started hunting around for his glasses. The bully sneered at me, shrugged, and took off with the pack of wolves he was with. I watched them go, fuming. I had to show them! I mean, they can’t call this poor kid a freak just because he wears glasses! No, I had to be true to my